I thought Kate was reaching for another Nilla Wafer when it happened. Turned out, she wasn't.
I had just said, "And under his Brooklyn Cyclones sweatshirt he was wearing this Boston Museum of Science T-shirt. It's gray, but faded, like he's been wearing it for years."
And that's when she reached across the floor, grabbed my notebook, and ripped out the page. Just like that. She didn't even hesitate or anything.
Before that, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the moment. We were doing what we always did—a recap of our day. Normally we recapped after school, over our snack, but we had all been busy after school today and so we had to recap after dinner, over dessert: Nilla Wafers and oolong tea.
Georgia's recap usually involved complaining about her math teacher, Kate's usually involved a gossipy story about some girls in her homeroom or the boy-of-the-minute, and mine was always the same—showing them the day's pages from my notebook and talking about PBJ.
There are certain things that once you do them, you can't undo. It's like putting toothpaste back in the tube, as my dad always says. And that's why more than anything else, I couldn't believe that Kate had just done something like that. Something so final, so irreversible, so mean.
And yet, I wasn't really mad. Just shocked.
"I'm sorry," she said finally, but she didn't mean it. I knew she didn't. It was one of those fake sorrys you said just because you felt you had to.
She crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it in the wicker garbage pail next to my bed. There were three years of marble notebooks—my Observation Notebooks—and before today, they were perfect. Not one missing page. Barely even a crinkled corner.
"I'm sorry, but it's just not normal," Kate said. Again it was a fake sorry, a defensive sorry. "You can't keep being obsessed with him like this. Writing down what he wears every day and who he talks to." She paused and got up from my bed. "Especially if you don't even talk to him yourself."
"I'll talk to him when I'm ready." I looked at Kate and then at Georgia and then back at Kate again. She'd just ripped a page out of my precious Observation Notebook, and she didn't feel bad about it. And Georgia didn't even say anything.
Some people collect snow globes, some people collect porcelain dolls. I collect observations that I write down in marble notebooks.
Is that weird? Maybe. But Kate and Georgia were supposed to be my best friends. They understood me. At least I thought they did.
"I'm going home." Kate walked toward the door and Georgia followed her. "I still love you, just remember that."
She sounded like my mom.
I stared at my notebook. I opened to where the page had been ripped out, and rubbed my finger against the binding. It felt rough and jagged and uneven.
I could hear my dad in the living room watching TV. I went in there not because I wanted to talk to him, but because I didn't want to sit alone.
I sat on the far end of the couch and looked at my notebook in my lap, thinking about what had just happened. Were we in a fight?
I wasn't sure, really. I hoped not.
My mom kept marble notebooks on all her patients. Psychologists need to keep meticulous records, and she liked having all her notes in one place. She bought marble notebooks in bulk at the stationery store around the corner. So one day I just took a blank one out of the box in her office and started writing. I wanted to understand PBJ, and I figured the best way to do that would be to keep a notebook and write down what I observed.
I was in fifth grade then. Two years ago. That's how long I've liked—I mean really liked—PBJ.
PBJ's real name is Phillip Becker-Jacobs, but I always call him PBJ. Not to his face, of course. I don't say much to his face anymore.
I met PBJ in first grade; we were in the same class. Back then he seemed like the perfect person to be friends with. It was normal for girls to be friends with boys in first grade. Also, he wore glasses and I felt bad for him. For some reason when I was little, I thought that kids wearing glasses was sad. Glasses, like arthritis or bad backs, were for older people. But he actually looked so cute in his glasses.
PBJ was the perfect boy. He always kept his desk really neat and always said please and thank you. And he could draw.
And back then we were friends. Plain, normal friends. Until the day he didn't seem like a plain, normal friend anymore—the day in fifth grade when Mr. Smith put us on the same team for the History Trivia Bowl. When I got a question right, PBJ slapped my hand. And when I got one wrong, he told me it was okay; I'd get the next one.
After that, I couldn't wait for more Trivia Bowl competitions and I dreaded them at the same time. It didn't make any sense. I stopped being able to talk to PBJ normally. I started avoiding him for no real reason and feeling really nervous when he was nearby.
That first day on the same Trivia Bowl team was the day I started liking him, and it's been that way ever since.
In the beginning Kate and Georgia found my notebook cool, and they even helped me name it. We cut out letters from my mom's psychology journals and taped them to the front. We called it "O's Os," short for "Olivia's Observations." Since then it evolved, and it's not only about PBJ anymore. It's about other stuff too, like what I observe day-to-day, just average stuff.
I like being an observer. One day I plan to compile my notebooks into a real book, typed up and everything. I think it's publishable. It'll be like a study of society—my society—like in the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder. The school where my dad teaches, Wilder Academy, is named after him. Every year the senior class puts on a production of the show, and every year it's different.
But lately Kate and Georgia seem to find my observations annoying. In fact, they have started calling my notebook "Olivia's Obsessions."
"Looks like there's gonna be a snow day tomorrow," my dad said, snapping me out of my thoughts. Sometimes I could be lost in my own thoughts for hours and completely forget there was anyone else around me. I looked at the weatherman on the TV; he was standing in front of the meteorological map thing. I could never make any sense of all the symbols and swirly things on those maps.
"Yeah, right," I said. We never had snow days. New York City had a snow day once every, like, ten years or something. Plus, it had been a really warm winter so far. It was February, and most days it felt like early October, as if winter was still on its way, not like it was almost over.
"No, really. I mean it." My dad was sitting on the edge of the couch staring at the television. He seemed excited, like a little kid. "They're saying it's going to be the biggest storm the city's seen in years."
"You know the weather people are always wrong. If they were sure of a blizzard, the schools would already be closed." I went into the kitchen and poured myself some orange juice. I hated that I was being so blasé about a possible snow day. It should be illegal to feel this way. Everyone knows snow days are the best thing ever. But if there was one day, out of the whole year, when I really, really, really didn't want a snow day, it was Valentine's Day.
Valentine's Day was a day when you wanted to be in school. It was a day when something could actually happen with PBJ and me. Maybe this was my year—the Valentine's Day that would change everything. Then Georgia and Kate wouldn't be annoyed with my obsessing anymore because I would have done something real. PBJ would like me. And I would like him. And everything would be perfect.
Valentine's Day was pretty much a free pass for declaring your feelings to your crush. Like it was socially acceptable and completely allowed for you to say however you felt and you didn't need to feel weird about it.
I'd always imagined PBJ making me a handmade valentine. I even practiced what I'd say when he gave it to me. I'd look surprised, really taken aback, but also touched and flattered and grateful. The valentine would be something he'd spent a lot of time on. Maybe he'd even draw a portrait of me or something, or a portrait of us together on thick, sturdy paper. Or maybe it would be cartoony, like a comic strip. He'd write my name in the coolest lettering. It would be something I'd save forever; maybe I'd even frame it on the wall next to my bed so I could look at it as I fell asleep. When it came to art, he could do anything, so I knew it would look great.
But aside from my obvious need to be near PBJ on Valentine's Day, there was also all the observing I'd miss if I had to stay home. I wanted to see how all the couples at school acted on Valentine's Day, all the people on the subway, in the neighborhood.
Valentine's Day was supposed to be magical.
And when it wasn't magical, it was really depressing. People who were lonely felt even lonelier on Valentine's Day. Like my math teacher, Mrs. Ketchum, who just lost her husband. I had been planning to bring her a box of Chen's fortune cookies to cheer her up a little.
All of these plans would be ruined if there was a blizzard. Totally ruined. And on top of that, a snow day wouldn't be very fun if Georgia and Kate were mad at me. It was hard to say what was worse: a school day when you're in a fight with your friends or a snow day when you're in a fight with your friends.
"Liver, come sit with me," my dad said. He was the only one who called me Liver. It was pretty much the grossest nickname I'd ever heard, but he liked it. At least it was unique.
My dad had turned off the TV and was now leaning on the wooden lap desk, scribbling on a yellow legal pad. I flopped down onto the couch and looked over his shoulder. He still had only one paragraph written, and he'd been working on his speech for a week.
"Dad, no offense, but does this acceptance speech really need to be such a big deal?" I crinkled up my face. "I mean, I'm proud of you and stuff, but being promoted to chairperson of the philosophy department at Wilder doesn't exactly feel Oscar speech–worthy."
He laughed. "Okay, no Oscar speech. But what should I say?"
"How about an anecdote? Maybe something about your favorite student ever?"
"I like that. Let me brainstorm." But then instead of doing that he turned on the TV again, switching channels to catch the weather on every station that was offering it. It seemed that my dad wanted a snow day really badly, probably just to give him some more time to procrastinate working on his speech.
I went into my room and put my ear up to the wall, the one that Kate and I shared. But I couldn't hear anything. That was one of the nice things about living in an apartment building with your two best friends: Sometimes you could tell if they were home without even having to call.
I hated when Georgia and Kate were annoyed with me. Obviously I knew they were sick of hearing about PBJ. They told me a million times that I had to get over him. But they just didn't get it, and they never will. Georgia's never had a crush before. And Kate had a different crush every single day.
They were my best friends in the whole world, but they didn't know what it was like to feel the way I felt about PBJ. To know that you're going to marry the person one day, but not know when or how that would happen.
I looked out my window, and I could see people going in and out of the subway, in a rush to get wherever they were going. There wasn't a single speck of snow. It didn't seem possible that there'd be a full-on blizzard by this time tomorrow. That I'd miss my chance to see PBJ on Valentine's Day. And what about all the people around the city with their special plans? They'd all be ruined. Everyone would be alone.
It sounds sappy, and I hated to admit this to people, but thinking about lonely people made me feel worse than just about anything else. I knew that some people enjoyed solitude—my dad was one of those people—but even though I knew it, I never really believed it.
People were meant to be with other people, weren't they?
"Night, Dad," I yelled.
"Night, Liver," he yelled back.
My mom was away at one of her psychology conventions. I wondered what would happen with the blizzard, and if she'd get stranded in Cincinnati. I hoped not, although sometimes it was nice just being home with my dad and my younger brother, Gabe. My dad always let us order in dinner. I never had to do the dishes. And when I felt like just sitting quietly, he didn't say a penny for your thoughts the way my mom always did.
The street lamp was shining just enough light through my window so that I could write a few things down in my Observation Notebook. I started a new page, after the torn-out one.
But after a few minutes I didn't feel like writing anymore.
I closed my Observation Notebook, flipped my pillow over to the cool side, and shut my eyes. I knew I'd fall asleep easily tonight because I was tired, and I really hoped I'd have a good dream, one with PBJ in it.
